Effects of Dietary Boron in Rats Fed a Vitamin D-Deficient Diet

Although boron has long been known to be required nutrient for plants, it was not until recently that there was any suggestion of a nutritional requirement for animals and humans. Addition of boron to the diet of vitamin D-deficient chicks indicated that boron may play a role in animal nutrition. St...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inEnvironmental health perspectives Vol. 102; no. suppl 7; pp. 55 - 58
Main Authors Dupre, John N., Keenan, Michael J., Hegsted, Maren, Brudevold, Andrea M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. National Institutes of Health. Department of Health, Education and Welfare 01.11.1994
Subjects
Animals
Boron
Boron - administration & dosage
Boron - physiology
Calcium
Calcium - metabolism
Diet
Dietary phosphorus
Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
Female
International Symposium on the Health Effects of Boron and Its Compounds. September 16-17, 1992 University of California, Irvine, California
Magnesium
Magnesium - metabolism
Male
Minerals
Nutritional Requirements
Phosphorus - metabolism
Potassium
Rats
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
Tissue Distribution
Vitamin D
Vitamin D Deficiency - physiopathology
Vitamins
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Although boron has long been known to be required nutrient for plants, it was not until recently that there was any suggestion of a nutritional requirement for animals and humans. Addition of boron to the diet of vitamin D-deficient chicks indicated that boron may play a role in animal nutrition. Studies with rats have demonstrated that supplemental dietary boron has most marked effects when the diet is deficient in known nutrients. We observed higher apparent-balance values of calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus for rats fed a vitamin D-deprived diet with dietary supplemental boron (2.72 ppm), than for rats fed the same diet without added boron (0.16 ppm). The treatment group with dietary supplemental boron demonstrated a high degree of variability in response to boron. We hypothesize that relatively large and variable vitamin D stores in weanling rats from a colony supplemented with 3000 IU vitamin D/kg diet accounted for the observed variable response. A recent, unpublished study using weanling rats from a low-vitamin D colony appears to support this hypothesis.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0091-6765
1552-9924
DOI:10.1289/ehp.94102s755